Strategies for Success

Eugenio Maria de Hostos Bilingual Community Charter School is a bicultural charter school, located in a growing Hispanic community in the Hunting Park section of Philadelphia. Working closely with a community organization, ASPIRA, the school utilizes a dual-immersion and culturally based model to enable students to become fluent in both English and Spanish. Along with promoting high student achievement through a rigorous academic curriculum, Hostos promotes the shared values of citizenship, cooperation, fairness, honesty, integrity, kindness, pursuit of excellence, respect and responsibility.

Refining Good Teaching

Having made AYP for the last five years, Hostos desires to keep the momentum going. Perfecting the art of teaching through Philly TAP, good teachers can become even better with greater results. Philly TAP has brought a common understanding of "best practice" and a common language through which to evaluate instruction.

"It helps to have a clear vision and understanding of what is expected from you as a teacher," says a new teacher who is working in a TAP school for the first time. Teachers are evaluated through the use of the TAP rubric four times per year.

A fifth grade mentor teacher who has been teaching for 29 years says, "In observations, teachers know the criteria by which they will be judged and observers know exactly what to observe. Dialogue occurs later between the observer and teacher to encourage the teacher in her strengths and help to refine a weakness."

Improving Student Achievement

An important element of TAP at Hostos is the weekly cluster meetings led by master teacher Athena Levan and mentor teacher Paula Schroeder.

"The weekly cluster meeting provides time and dialogue for class and lesson reflection. With this reflection teachers then make connections to the rubric in order to support their area of reinforcement and refinement."

Aislinn Conetta, 6^th grade Mentor Teacher

The cluster meetings are also an opportunity for teachers to share successes and classroom experiences. After a cycle of rubric review, a new facet of the rubric was introduced using information gathered during field testing.

"The field tested strategies have proven to be successful. The students needed strategies to help them pinpoint what the questions were asking and then how to find only the essential information," says a 4^th grade teacher who has been teaching for 13 years and has been at Hostos for three years. "Proof that it works: on a recent reading test the students, on their own, coded the QAR strategy and cited evidence including page numbers for their answers."